Estonia’s industrial companies are expecting turnover growth this year and are planning to invest into making their production more effective.

According to a survey by Swedbank, 68 percent of Estonia’s industry is hoping to increase turnover this year. Of the same companies, 93 percent are planning to invest as well, chiefly into making their work more effective. This can mean, among other things, that they will replace some of the less skill-based positions with robots.

One of the biggest worries of the sector is finding staff with the required skills. Some 79 percent of companies say that they are suffering from a lack of qualified specialists, and every fifth states it is planning to hire abroad.

“We see this on the shop floor as well as in the offices. On the shop floor we see that the price pressure is increasing. We are competing with Finnish companies, and we see that the gap is getting smaller. At the moment we are thinking about markets close by, Ukraine seems to be a chance to get the same quality at a lower price. If we’re talking about the offices, then in terms of engineers the situation is even worse,” tank producer Estanc’s CEO, Mihkel Tammo, commented the situation.

Head of Swedbank’s industry department, Raul Kirsimäe, tends to agree. “We lack specialists the most, for example in the heavy industry, all of the processing industry, the wood industry. There is a lack of specialists able to work with state-of-the-art technology, and who can also plan production processes,” Kirsimäe explained.

The Reform Party's parliamentary group in the Riigikogu decided on Monday to support Kalle Laanet's candidacy for the position of deputy speaker. This means that the group has turned on party chairman Hanno Pevkur, who will have to make way for Laanet. The decision follows yet another weekend of bickering and conspiracy theories inside Estonia's leading opposition party.